A little while ago I went on a date with a new guy. He was very nice and polite, active in Church, good-looking, and seemed to have a stable job.

Almost every time I flipped on television last week, there was a deeply angry guy on a running tirade about the conspiracies afoot, the enemies around all corners, and how he alone seemed to understand what was under way.

I have to start by saying that I love Facebook, and Instagram, and in fact the act of “liking” others’ lives has become somewhat of a hobby of mine. Social media, however, and all those little thumbs-up or hearts or +1s that come attached, has built a funny new habit in the way people interact with their own self-image.

MR says: Check out this great insight into how one person stopped phoning it in on Sundays and find out where to download great wallpapers that can help you stay focused on the Sabbath.

As of January 7th, the Church had 84,728 missionaries serving--a surprise figure that has held strong after the initial surge that came with the age change announcement almost two and a half years ago.

f you are in charge of a New Year’s Eve Party, consider this brilliant idea for sharing “30 Minutes of Wisdom.” This blogger explains how it works: “This year we would like each of you to take ONE MINUTE to share some wisdom with the rest of us; something you wish everyone else in the family knew, a skill, talent, testimony, activity, etc. What could bless everyone else and help along their journey? Since we each have unique gifts and talents and answers to prayers– we know that we can learn from one another.

Many of us often sit in the same area each week when we attend church, sometimes just out of habit and ease, and some people like to even sit in the exact same row each week.

Read our recipe reviews here.

Mormon fascination with the ancient world stems largely from an exotic corpus of writings found in the canon of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One book in the Church’s canon, the Book of Abraham, which Joseph Smith claimed to be an inspired translation of some ancient Egyptian papyri, has captured Mormon imagination with a vibrant narrative involving the eponymous biblical patriarch, human sacrifice, far-off lands, divine encounters and a grand cosmology. One BYU professor, Kerry Muhlestein, has devoted a good portion of his academic career (over a decade) investigating the saga of the Book of Abraham. Muhlestein, who holds a PhD in Egyptology from UCLA, is an associate professor of ancient scripture at BYU. According to his faculty bio on the BYU Religious Education website, Muhlestein “is the director of the BYU Egypt Excavation Project,” which has led successful archaeological digs in Egypt, and has academic expertise in fields including “Ancient Egypt, Hebrew Bible, [and the] Pearl of Great Price.”

John Taylor was known as a staunch defender of truth throughout his life, but did you know that he was almost tarred and feathered for his beliefs?